There's a joke about grumpy mutant berserker Wolverine: his powers must include teleportation, because he turns up in so many different comic books every month. Luckily, Kieron Gillen writes funnier jokes, but this looks like his Wolverine moment. The ex-videogame journalist has four new comics coming out in 2013, and is writing Marvel's flagship Iron Man title in the year of the character's 50th anniversary.

Gillen came to comics at 25 and fell in love with the medium. "Imagine if you'd never really listened to music and then suddenly realised you'd discovered a whole new wing of culture. That was me and comic books," he says. Music saturates his work, which is possibly why it resonates beyond the Spandex fanboy community; he's surely the only Marvel writer whose CV includes a comic based on a Pipettes single, and he once wrote an entire X-Men arc inspired by Stereolab's French Disko. In 2013, he's reuniting with artist Jamie McKelvie for two hotly anticipated new books. Here, Gillen gives us the lowdown on those, and all his current adventures.

Iron Man

Illustration: Greg Land/Marvel Entertainment

(Marvel Comics) "I think Tony Stark is one of the great comic characters because he is incredibly problematic. Bruce Wayne pretends to be a playboy, but he doesn't actually sleep with all those supermodel girlfriends. Tony does. That's a fundamental difference. Tony is the worst person, but he's still very appealing. In the sixth issue of my Iron Man run [published 6 February] we send Tony off into a massive space opera adventure. This is Iron Man as Conan: he may be a genius on Earth but when he meets advanced alien civilisations, they just see him as a cute little barbarian."

Young Avengers

(Marvel Comics) "Young Avengers is a comic about teens, and this incarnation is very much me trying to say everything I remember about being 18. If it was a pop star, it would be Robyn: someone in their 30s, writing songs about teen emotions, primarily for an audience in their 20s. Its heroes aren't government agents, they're just kids with powers who live in the same world as Captain America, trying to live up to the ideal of being an Avenger. At that age I think you can feel both invulnerable and very cynical.

"The main characters are Wiccan and Hulkling, a young gay couple who have inspired a lot of love and a lot of NSFW Tumblr art. There's also Kid Loki from my last book, Miss America and a female Hawkeye. Plus there's Noh-Varr, who's sort of an alien hipster. The way some kids are obsessed with Japan, he's obsessed with Earth. David Bowie was the primary influence on Noh-Varr, specifically the Man Who Fell To Earth, a splash of Ziggy and a lot of lithe sexuality. Now Bowie's back too. On any scale I care about, Bowie is a superhero."

Kieron Gillen. Photograph: Charlie Chu

Three

(Image Comics) "I've been into Spartans since I was about 11, because the idea of 300 warriors standing against a million at Thermopylae is so striking. But the reason the Spartans were such great warriors is because they each had 10 Helots at their side, doing everything else for them. This was a slave culture. So Three is a heroic myth about people who never got a heroic myth about them, like a Billy Bragg agit-prop song. It's a five-part chase book about three Helots who kill one of the ruling class, and then have 300 Spartans out for their blood."

Phonogram

Illustration: Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie/Marvel Entertainment

(Image Comics) "Phonogram is an urban fantasy comic, specifically about the idea that music is magic. Because if you think about it, music is magic: there's no real reason for a series of sounds played in an interesting order to have this physiological effect on you.

"The first volume was about Britpop and the idea of nostalgia and musical history being rewritten, and the second was about the effect of certain singles, set during one night at a nightclub. McKelvie and I never thought we'd get to do a third volume; we actually staged a wake for Phonogram in 2010. But we're completing the trilogy, and The Immaterial Girl uses music videos as a way to talk about self-image and identity. It's centred around a scene queen who sold half her personality for great power. Now that other half has come back and taken over her life. I'm not kidding when I say A-ha's Take On Me video is the fundamental driving force of the story."

Uber

(Avatar Press) "Uber is an alternate history story where, at the close of the second world war, Nazi Germany invents a way to enhance humans, starting a desperate arms race. The idea of a literal Übermensch is utterly horrific, and I've written it entirely straight, as credibly and as well-researched as the concept can be."